I Phone Data Usage Problem

[paulm]

Hoping somebody more iphone savvy can help please ?

I've had my iphone 4S for around five or six months now, on an O2 package with unlimited minutes but a data limit of 1 or 2 GB per month, I forget which.

I had some texts from O2 a week or so before the end of my last billing month (which runs to the 12th of each month) saying I had nearly used all that months data allowance, and then subsequently that I had used it all a couple of days before the 12th of September. No real problem I thought, i'll wait till the 13th and the new months data allowance starts again.

This morning though, only a few days into the new month, more texts from O2 saying I have now exceeded this months data allowance !!!

How do I figure out what is using the data and how much ?

I've not had this in any of the earlier months and not knowingly doing anything much different that I can think of that would suddenly start to use loads of data, but then I guess I don't really understand which aspects use data anyway?!!!

Also yesterday the battery ran down from fully charged to only 2% by the evening while only being used for a five minute call, so I suspect I've got something running on it somewhere that's consuming data and battery big time that I may have triggered inadvertently or left running that's causing both things?

Cheers, Paul

 

[Harbo]

If you are not connected to wifi then you'll be using 3G to upload and download data?
Safari, Google, email etc etc,
Battery life - have you a game running, satnav or some other App running?
I've never got that low in a day except when my Granddaughters having been playing lots of games on it?

Rod

 

[Jensmith]

Have you checked what is running - double click the button so you get the bar at the bottom with all the apps that are open and you can see what's running. If you then hold down on the app in that bar they will start to jiggle and will have a little cross in the corner. tap again and you close it.

You can also go to Settings - general - usage - cellular usage (down the bottom). That will tell you how much data you've used since you last rebooted the phone.

You use data for accessing the internet when out and about, google maps, sat nav, anything like that that connects to the network. Wifi doesn't count.

Maybe ring up 02 as well and see what's up once you've seen what you data usage is.

Hope that helps.

 

[paulm]

If you are not connected to wifi then you'll be using 3G to upload and download data?
Safari, Google, email etc etc,
Battery life - have you a game running, satnav or some other App running?
I've never got that low in a day except when my Granddaughters having been playing lots of games on it?

Rod

I've just managed to figure out at last how to connect it to the secured wifi network at home this afternoon Rod So now running on wifi here at last. Didn't appreciate email (amongst others) used up data allowance and I have been sending and receiving a few emails of late some with picture attachments...... Maybe it's just been that and some apps ? When using an app or satnav, I've always assumed that when you press the iphone button at the bottom of the phone to come out of it, it stops the app running, but is that not the case then ?

I've just seen you're reply too thanks Jen, never knew you could do that double press on the button and stuff ! When I do that it had all sorts of things there including phone, messages, calendar, contacts, satnav, loads of stuff ! I held down on one till it "jiggled" and they all showed the red minus sign top left, and I then pressed that on each of them and they dissapeared from the bottom bar as you say. Again that suggests that I need to do something different maybe when leaving a function rather than just pressing the bottom phone button ?

Thks, Paul

 

[jimmybigfoot]

Hi, have you been abroad with your data roaming on as this is very expensive when using data with 3G.
Jim

 

[paulm]

No, not been abroad Jim, just to London and Croydon last few days !

Cheers, Paul

 

[petermillard]

Have you checked what is running - double click the button so you get the bar at the bottom with all the apps that are open and you can see what's running.

Sorry, but that's not actually the case; double-clicking the home button shows a list of apps that have been recently used - albeit with a few caveats, these apps are *not* running, but are actually in a 'suspended' state. There's a very good blog post and explanation of it here btw.

HTH Pete

 

[paulm]

That's a big help Pete, interesting article or and makes it a lot clearer.

Still unsure how I managed to consume 1gb of data in the space of three days though, although sorting out the wifi connection when at home should help some.

Think I'll have to buy a data top up for the rest of this month and see how it goes before deciding whether I need an additional data bolt on to increase to 2gb a month ongoing, or whether it was some kind of one-off issue .....

Cheers, Paul

 

[Jensmith]

Have you checked what is running - double click the button so you get the bar at the bottom with all the apps that are open and you can see what's running.

Sorry, but that's not actually the case; double-clicking the home button shows a list of apps that have been recently used - albeit with a few caveats, these apps are *not* running, but are actually in a 'suspended' state. There's a very good blog post and explanation of it here btw.

HTH Pete

Who says he's right?! I'm sorry, but I know he's wrong, having been an ipad and iphone user for several years now.

This is an opposing article that references the post Pete referred to but has a different opinion:
http://www.wonderoftech.com/close-your-apps/

Unfortunately, you get a lot of people that don't know what they're talking about, on both sides!

I have used an iphone now for 2 years and I KNOW that certain apps use memory and battery even though I've exited them. Typical examples are sat nav apps and games. No, not every app will do it but some do and will. They may not be 'running' but it doesn't mean they're not using memory and battery.

The OP's problem also referred to his battery being low after a short period of time and this is typical of having an app 'suspended' if you like, but still using battery.

It makes good sense to check and close apps properly if you're having problems like the OP's been having.

 

[Jensmith]

Have you checked what is running - double click the button so you get the bar at the bottom with all the apps that are open and you can see what's running.

Sorry, but that's not actually the case; double-clicking the home button shows a list of apps that have been recently used - albeit with a few caveats, these apps are *not* running, but are actually in a 'suspended' state. There's a very good blog post and explanation of it here btw.

HTH Pete

Who says he's right?!

This is an opposing article that references the post Pete referred to but has a different opinion:
http://www.wonderoftech.com/close-your-apps/

Unfortunately, you get a lot of people that don't know what they're talking about, on both sides!

I have used an iphone now for 2 years and I KNOW that certain apps use memory and battery even though I've exited them. Typical examples are sat nav apps and games. No, not every app will do it but some do and will. They may not be 'running' but it doesn't mean they're not using memory and battery.

The OP's problem also referred to his battery being low after a short period of time and this is typical of having an app 'suspended' if you like, but still using battery.

It makes good sense to check and close apps properly if you're having problems like the OP's been having.

 

[paulm]

Hmmm, the plot thickens Jen !

It would explain why the data allowance and battery was consumed in such a short time..... something(s) were responsible for it !

Thinking back, I downloaded a new "knots" app, for tips on tying hammock and other camping knots :roll: and was using that around the same time, surprisingly useful actually :lol: and the night sky app too, possibly the maps app also, so I may experiment with those and see if they are responsible.

I can quite believe that despite the theory on apps being suspended, that by design (good or bad), some don't and could cause such a problem, seems the only sensible explanation for the symptoms......

Thanks for everybodies input, if I find out any more I'll post back and let you know.

Cheers, Paul

 

[Jensmith]

I hope you find out what app(s) it is so you can enjoy using your phone

Map apps would certainly be a possibility as they do tend to be battery and data hungry. Sat Nav is also a battery killer.

The best idea is to close all apps, reset your usage log and then try the most likely apps and see what happens. Obviously anything you've downloaded recently is a good one to test. You can monitor usage and see what happens.

Try leaving an app 'suspended' and see what happens to your battery with little else open. you'll soon find out which app is causing the problem.

 

[CHJ]

Sounds as though there might be some rather less than perfect programming going on with some of those Apps.
Not that the service providers would care very much I suspect.

 

[newt]

Is there not an App that allows you to see what data is being used, surly there must be. It should allow you to set a data limit which if exceeded would enable an alarm. My PC allows me to see the activity on the CPU and Memory. Of course if there were such an App the providers profits my decline, can't have that.

 

[petermillard]

Who says he's right?! I'm sorry, but I know he's wrong, having been an ipad and iphone user for several years now... This is an opposing article that references the post Pete referred to but has a different opinion:
http://www.wonderoftech.com/close-your-apps/

Jen, I've also owned iPhones and iPads for a long time - since they were first available - and personally, I'll take the advice of an actual app developer over a blogger any day. But who says he's right? Apple does, here:-

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ ... sFlow.html.

Of course, it's part of their developer programme, so it's all a bit techie for me; luckily Frasier Speirs (a teacher btw) has done a video for us simple folks, here - http://vimeo.com/34660348

As I said, with a few caveats (SatNav, some games, and apps like Skype in particular) the apps shown when you double-click the home button (the 'multitasking bar') are not 'running', they're in the background, or suspended i.e. not using memory or clock cycles.

It makes good sense to check and close apps properly if you're having problems like the OP's been having.

If it makes you feel better, the have at it - but all it does is make you feel better. Those apps you see when you double click the home button are not 'running'; it's just a list of recently used apps and deleting them from that list makes no difference at all. If you're having problems, a hard reset (home button and power switch held down until the apple logo appears) will do far more good, honestly.

Best, Pete.

 

[Dibs-h]

Mines not an Iphone but a Galaxy S2 and I have the 3G data turned off by default and will only enable it if I want to do something on the web and WiFi is not available. Mind you - I don't have email setup on mine - have enough of it at work! :roll:

Have 500mb data allowance which I might take off, if I don't end up using it over the next month or 2.

Oh yes - and don't leave apps running in the background. I make a point of killing all apps once I'm done with them and barely charge it 2-3 times a week.

Dibs

 

[Lons]

As an iphone ( 3 and 4 ) user for a couple of years, I quickly discovered that if you allow any of the aps to "use your current location" the battery didn't seem to last long. Some such as sat nav need to of course.

I don't allow any and keep well within my limit and battery life is pretty good.

Why don't you try switching off data roaming and see if any apps ask you to switch it back on. Might give a couple of clues. Settings / general / network. Enabling airplane mode can I think have the same effecxt

Bob

I'm on o2 and they have some pretty knowledgeable staff who can talk you through your settings.

 

[Jensmith]

Who says he's right?! I'm sorry, but I know he's wrong, having been an ipad and iphone user for several years now... This is an opposing article that references the post Pete referred to but has a different opinion:
http://www.wonderoftech.com/close-your-apps/

Jen, I've also owned iPhones and iPads for a long time - since they were first available - and personally, I'll take the advice of an actual app developer over a blogger any day. But who says he's right? Apple does, here:-

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ ... sFlow.html.

Of course, it's part of their developer programme, so it's all a bit techie for me; luckily Frasier Speirs (a teacher btw) has done a video for us simple folks, here - http://vimeo.com/34660348

As I said, with a few caveats (SatNav, some games, and apps like Skype in particular) the apps shown when you double-click the home button (the 'multitasking bar') are not 'running', they're in the background, or suspended i.e. not using memory or clock cycles.

It makes good sense to check and close apps properly if you're having problems like the OP's been having.

If it makes you feel better, the have at it - but all it does is make you feel better. Those apps you see when you double click the home button are not 'running'; it's just a list of recently used apps and deleting them from that list makes no difference at all. If you're having problems, a hard reset (home button and power switch held down until the apple logo appears) will do far more good, honestly.

Best, Pete.

I guess we can agree to respectfully disagree. Even if Apple says so, it doesn't mean developers have written their apps correctly and of course Apple will paint a rosy picture. They want to sell their products.

My Fiance has 10 years programming experience in Unix on which the Mac/ iphone OS is based and he says otherwise.

And no, it doesn't "make me feel better", it actually does the job it's supposed to do! I don't need a hard reset. I just need to close the apps!

Looked at your link to Apple:

I quote from Apple: "The app is in the background". "While suspended, an app remains in memory but does not execute any code." Right, so that confirms what I said, that the app can still be using memory when it's 'suspended'.

That pretty much confirms what I was saying. At no point does that article say the apps are exited when closed. They're just suspended. It's only a list of 'recently used apps' because if you never clear them out the old ones will eventually be purged to make room
I again quote from your article from Apple: "When a low-memory condition occurs, the system may purge suspended apps without notice to make more space for the foreground app."

Also from your video - in the comments below: "
Peter Schaufuss 8 months ago
Great demonstration of the very robust iOS system.
However, to my experience sometimes the OS runs low on memory without killing tasks, resulting in sluggish performance (most noticeable on iPhone 4 or older devices).
In those cases it DOES help to manually shut down apps, because it will free up memory.
I know you shouldn't have to, but to me it seems the OS may be just bit optimistic on how little memory is needed to run smoothly.
If the OS was a bit more aggressive as to the amount of minimum free memory, this would not be a problem, but this is of course Apples decision.
What are your comments to this?"

Just because Apple and Frasier Spiers say it "should" work perfectly, it doesn't mean it actually does.

 

[paulm]

Just ordered a 750mb data top up for £6 and will try a few of the suspected apps and see how we go.....

Cheers, Paul

 

[JakeS]

I know Apple assures that such things couldn't possibly get past their screening process, but I very much doubt that that's completely true - I would worry that one of the applications I had on my phone was either doing dodgy stuff in secret, or was buggy and was chewing through data it didn't need.

Oh yes - and don't leave apps running in the background. I make a point of killing all apps once I'm done with them and barely charge it 2-3 times a week.

I don't know how relevant this is for iPhone users, since I don't own one myself either - but I'd expect it's probably a similar situation.

On Android, killing applications which aren't 'awake' - actually displaying stuff to the screen right now - doesn't really do much. You can free up a bit of RAM, but it doesn't take the unit more or less power to keep the RAM in use or not, and as I understand it the OS will properly suspend those apps which aren't being used if more RAM is needed by another app. Applications which need to (or think they need to!) run in the background - things which perform periodic monitoring, alerts, etc. - will install a system service which runs independently of the application itself.

On my (Android) phone right now, I have only one application shown as running in Task Manager, but in services (Settings -> Applications -> Running Services) I have eleven things running, including the GMail service which periodically checks my email and a load of OS services which provide various phone functionality.

If the iPhone has a similar list of services that you can interact with, then that is where I would look for any rogue processes which are running when they shouldn't be, things which you were unaware would be potentially using data when you aren't using them... and that's where I'd be closing everything to systematically check which one is using my data allowance. Unfortunately if my experience on the Mac desktop is anything to go by, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple hides stuff like that from you "to improve the user experience"...